


Beast Boy's Guide to Convincing Your Girlfriend to Play Video Games

by BonitaBreezy



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, One Shot, Slice of Life, Video & Computer Games, it's like mindless fluff basically, tbh I don't really know what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-28 03:50:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10070096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BonitaBreezy/pseuds/BonitaBreezy
Summary: It's a slow day and Raven just wants to read her book.  Her boyfriend has other ideas, and none of them seem appealing, at least until they do.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I just binge-watched Teen Titans and then this happened. So...do with it what you will, I guess?

Raven let out a long sigh and raised her book up just slightly to make room for the green lynx that was failing to subtly creep into her lap.  She let out a few quiet grunts as large paws were rested on squishy places with more weight than an animal that size should have had. Apparently pleased with his positioning, he finally flopped down on top of her, pressing his face against her stomach.

Raven rolled her eyes and lowered her arms again so that they were resting on the lynx's furry side. She shifted her book to one hand and buried the fingers of her other hand in the fuzzy scruff at the cat's neck, giving him a few firm scratches. The cat let out a deep, pleased purr that she felt rumble through her core. 

"You know, a lynx isn't exactly a lap-sized animal," she pointed out, and then suddenly it wasn't a lynx in her lap at all, but a sixteen year old boy. 

"All cats are cuddly," Gar insisted, his face still pressed into her stomach. "And you hate it when I sit in your lap as a house cat."

"Because you always go for the fluffiest monstrosities on the planet and I end up finding green fur on all my clothes for weeks," Raven informed him, as if they hadn't had that same conversation a hundred times before. 

"I look great as a Maine Coon," he said dismissively. "Majestic." 

"Or something," Raven said dryly, scratching her fingers through his short green hair the way she had for his lynx form. Human form or not, the pleased purring noise he made was pretty cat-like.

"What do you want?"  To anyone else, the question might have seemed harsh, but Gar was used to her bluntness by now and he didn't seem offended. 

"What, I can't want to spend time with my girl?" He asked innocently. 

To be fair, it wasn't uncommon for Gar to seek her out to cuddle, in either animal or human form. Though they'd never admit it out loud, they had a silent understanding that they were both touch starved, and Gar was one of the only people Raven felt comfortable letting into her personal space for an extended period of time. But usually when he did this, he was tired after a long day of fighting, or in a melancholy mood and looking for comfort. But today it was barely past breakfast and all had been quiet on the western front so far. If she concentrated, she could feel his emotions at the edge of her awareness, all soft contentment and gentle adoration that made her feel unworthy and endlessly loved all at once.  

So the fact that he was feeling so clingy that he was climbing into her lap right in the tower's common room was odd and a little alarming. Not that she minded, necessarily, but she did worry.  Still, as soft as she allowed herself to be around him, she had a reputation to maintain so she said,

"Don't call me 'your girl'."  It didn't come out nearly as irritated as she'd been aiming for, and the fangy grin Gar sent up at her told her that he'd noticed. 

"My woman?" He suggested instead. "Or is that too cradle-robbery, since you're gonna be eighteen soon?"

"Not for eight months," Raven said, rolling her eyes. "Though I suppose dating you is quite a lot like baby sitting."

"Dude," he protested. "Not cool."

"If you consider how many times I have to slap your hands away from things you shouldn't be touching..."

"Okay, fair," Gar admitted.

"So are you going to tell me what you want?" She asked, fixing her eyes back on her book again.

"Do I have to want anything other than to be with..."

"Gar."

"Ugh, okay, I just got the new RoboSmashers 4 and I’ve played through most of the single player mode and I’m bored of it so I want to play two player but Cyborg is too busy slobbering over his car to play with me!  And Robin is doing one his intense training sessions and I was afraid to ask him in case he tried to make me join him."

"So I was your last option," Raven finished dryly. 

"Well, technically Starfire was, but only because Cyborg won’t let her play with the GameStation anymore.  So, are you going to play with me?" he demanded.

"Not on your life," Raven assured him. 

"Please Rae?" He begged, putting on his very best pleading face, by shifting into a tiny kitten with huge eyes. 

“I’m reading, Gar,” she said. “And video games are stupid.”

“How would you know, you’ve never played one!”

“I’ve seen enough to know,” she assured him.

“Rae,” he said, in a high-pitched whiney tone.  

It was so reminiscent of how he sounded when he was 14 and drove her crazy on a daily basis that it made her twitch and resist the urge to push him off her lap and right on to the floor.  That had been a time when she tolerated him at best. That was before she’d really gotten to know him and before she’d let him start to know her.  Before late night talks and comforting hugs, and yes, a thousand jokes at each others’ expense.  Before he’d handed her a penny for luck and tucked her away into safety so that he could go out to fight to try to protect her from her own destiny, even though they all knew they would lose.  She knew, now, that there was a lot more to him than met the eye.

He’d also grown up a lot since then, both physically and emotionally.  He’d gone from the shortest member of the team to the second tallest practically overnight, much to Robin’s displeasure. His voice had cracked comically for weeks before evening out to a slightly deeper, pleasant timber, and his lean, lanky muscle had settled into something a little more solid around the arms and shoulders.  He’d mellowed out in a lot of ways.  He’d become more confident in himself and his place on the team, so he’d become less annoying and in need of attention at all times.  He still told bad jokes and played pranks, but he’d become, overall, a more relaxed presence.

One day she’d looked up at him and realized he wasn’t an annoying kid anymore.  He wasn’t quite a man either, and he could still be incredibly annoying when he put his mind to it, but he was also her best friend and her closest confidant.  In that moment, rising up on her toes to kiss him had seemed like the most natural thing in the world, even if the powerful rush of emotions that had surged through her at the feeling of his hands cradling her face had caused her powers to blow every fuse in the tower.   She hadn’t regretted doing it once.

Sometimes, though, he reverted back to being particularly annoying and immature, and Raven felt the urge to throttle him.   Instead, she fixed him with a flat, unimpressed look and he rolled his eyes dramatically.

“Fine,” he grumbled, “I’ll go ask Cyborg.”

He rolled off the couch and slumped from the room like she was sending him to the gallows, his pout out in full effect.  She huffed, rolled her eyes, and snapped her book shut.  She knew how loud the boys could get when they were trying to beat each other, and she really did want to keep reading, since it was due back at the library soon.  The librarians were usually pretty nice about waiving any late fees because she was a Titan, but she tried not to take advantage of their kindness too much.

Before she could stand up and make her escape to her bedroom, though, the door slid open and admitted Starfire.

“Raven!” she exclaimed, hefting up a large plastic tote box hopefully. “Would you like to partake in the friendly ritual of painting the nails with me?”

What she wanted to do was go to her room and finish reading her book, but Starfire was fixing her with a huge, wide-eyed puppy stare that rivaled Gar’s.  It was particularly impressive because Gar’s puppy stare involved him morphing in to a literal puppy.  Raven wasn’t usually so weak-willed that she couldn’t ignore begging from her friends, but it had been a while since she’d done anything with Starfire outside of beating up criminals.  They were both wrapped up in fighting crime and their boyfriends, but Raven really didn’t want to be the kind of girl who ignored the world in favor of a boy, so nodded instead, settling back on the couch as Starfire squealed with delight.

“First I will do yours and then you will do mine, yes?” Starfire asked, plopping her box on the cushions between them.

“Sure,” Raven agreed, setting her book a safe distance away. “Beast Boy and Cyborg might be in soon to play video games, too.”

“Wonderful!” Starfire said, genuinely enthusiastic.

“If you say so,” Raven responded, digging through the plethora of nail polishes in search of a color she wanted.  

There were at least ten different shades of purple, and quite a few lurid green ones that she immediately ignored.  A pumpkin orange was quickly added to the no pile, followed by a dusty pink.  She paused on a hardly-used bottle of black polish and then dismissed it when she thought about the heckling she’d be sure to get from Cyborg and Gar.  She finally selected a sparkly deep blue one that looked like the night sky.

“Excellent choice!” Starfire praised, grabbing one of the bright green ones before scooping the rest of the polishes back into the box.

She didn’t seem to mind that Raven kept her nails short, just started filing off any rough edges cheerfully and efficiently.  Raven wasn’t much for manicures, but every week she would trim her nails and file them, because being a Titan was a messy business and if she didn’t, they might split to the quick in a fight.  While not life-threatening, it was rather painful, so she mostly just avoided the whole mess by cutting them off and making sure they were smooth enough not snag anything. 

Starfire, however, filed nails like a pro.  In a few short minutes, she managed to make Raven’s nails look neat and shaped and she was uncapping the blue polish and applying it with a steady hand.

“I think your nails are going to look a lot worse than mine do,” Raven admitted as she watched Starfire apply the paint precisely to her nails, avoiding her skin expertly.

“I’m sure you will do a wonderful job,” Starfire assured her sincerely.

“Well, we’ll see,” Raven said doubtfully.

Starfire had already started on her second hand when the doors whirred open, admitting Gar once more, sans Cyborg.

“Beast Boy!”  Starfire cried happily as a greeting.

“Hey, Star,” Gar said, throwing himself over the back of the couch and landing face down on the cushions.

“What troubles you?” Starfire asked, concerned.

“Cyborg is too obsessed with his car to play with me,” Gar pouted. “And Robin is doing his secret Boy Wonder training and Raven…”

“Thinks the video games are useless,” Starfire nodded sagely. “I would gladly play with you, if Cyborg had not forbid me from touching the Game Station after my last attempt…”

“Well, you did get so frustrated you destroyed it with a starbolt,” Gar said, wincing at the memory.

“The little man would not jump at the right times,” Starfire sniffed, putting one last stroke of polish on Raven’s thumb and pronouncing it done.

“Well, it’s up to the player to get the timing right, Star,” Gar pointed out, but Starfire only huffed primly.

“We will give you a few minutes to dry,” she proclaimed, blowing gently on Raven’s wet nails before releasing her hand.

“Raven, would you please play with me? Just a few rounds?” Gar begged.

“My nails are wet,” Raven pointed out, waggling her fingers in his direction. 

“So? You don’t use your nails to move the controls,” Gar scoffed.

“Nail polish is very easy to ruin,” Raven informed him, though a smudge in her nail polish would hardly bother her, even if the deep blue lacquer did look rather nice at the ends of her fingers.

“If you are so bored, perhaps you would like to paint the nails as well, Beast Boy!” Starfire said excitedly, her eyes lighting up.

Gar looked doubtful for a moment, and then narrowed his eyes at Raven’s smirking face.

“I’m good, Star, thanks,” he said, sticking his tongue out at Raven for good measure.  She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I don’t see how painting your nails is any less pointless than video games.”

“It inspires bonds of companionship!” Starfire explained cheerfully. “Sometimes there is also braiding of the hair and discussing boys.”

“Uh, video games are totally about bonding.”

“Oh yes, I see that in the way that your gaming sessions almost always end with Cyborg putting you in a headlock,” Raven said dryly.

“Not my fault he cheats,” Gar grumbled. “And who are these boys you’re apparently always talking about?”

“My other boyfriends,” Raven said with a careful air of disinterest, focusing on making the perfect first stroke of paint on Starfire’s pointer finger.  It was shaky, and she got a speck of pain on her cuticle, but if that was the only mess she made, she would count herself lucky.

“Your other…” Gar repeated, and the scowled. “That’s not funny, Rae.”

“You wouldn’t know funny if it smacked you in the face,” Raven shot back, but even she had to admit that his offended squawk was comical.

“I’m hilarious,” Gar informed her indignantly. “I know you’re all about tight knit emotional control and that keeps you from appreciating my humor…”

“What humor…”

“Hey!” Gar exclaimed suddenly, with no segue whatsoever, “I have a great idea.”

“Well, that’s doubtful,” Raven said, but Gar just ignored her.

“Why don’t you use your powers to play video games with me?”

Raven stared at him for a very long moment in silence, unsure if that was supposed to be a joke or not.  The excited expression on his face said that it probably wasn’t.

“What.” 

“Think about it!” Gar said excitedly. “You won’t mess up your nails, and it’s like...magical fine motor skills!”

And...as much as she hated to admit it, she was intrigued.  Generally, she used her magic for big things: shields, throwing heavy objects, trapping or grabbing people.  But there were occasions when small and subtle was the better approach, and she didn’t get to practice with those sorts of things very often.  Manipulating the joystick and the small buttons on the controller without crushing it would present a unique challenge.

“That’s your thinking about it face!” Gar exclaimed victoriously.“Which is as good as your yes face!”

“I’ll play one game,” she said as he raced to turn the system on and collect the controllers.

“You’re not gonna get anything out of just one game!” Gar protested. “You need to play at least ten!”

“Five,” Raven countered.

“Eight.” Gar shot back.

“Five,” Raven said again, firmly, finishing up Starfire’s right hand and moving on to her left.

“I don’t think you’re really understanding how bargaining works…”

“Beast Boy,” she said sharply.

“Fine, fine!” Gar relented. “Five.”

By the time Raven finished with Starfire’s nails, Gar had the game up and running, just waiting for the each player to pick a character.  They were all an assortment of tricked-out robots, and since she didn’t know anything about them or the game, she just picked the blue one.  Gar showed her all the different buttons, pointing out which ones were attack and which ones were block and a few combinations that she definitely wasn’t going to remember to do special attacks.

“And basically just keep hitting until one of us wins!” he said brightly.

“Riveting,” Raven muttered.  

She carefully lifted her controller in a ball of black magic and gave it a few experimental prods.  It was hard to figure out a way to hold it that felt natural, because it wasn’t just moving the controller, it was moving components on the controller.  She focused on it with a frown and moved it around until it felt somewhat less awkward.

“Go on then,” she said.

Gar started the round, and try as she might to make the character on the screen do what she wanted, it mostly just moved and swung it’s giant robot arms around, totally missing Gar’s green robot.  She was beaten in less than a minute, much to Gar’s endless amusement.

“Man, I totally creamed you!” he said in delight.

“Shocking,” Raven shot back, telling herself that she wasn’t annoyed and that she didn’t care because it was just a stupid game. “Considering you’ve been playing all morning and that was my first try.”

“Go again?” Gar asked, quirking his eyebrows challengingly.

Raven only nodded.  That time she managed to figure out the best way to account for the lag between when she hit the button and when the character reacted on the screen.  She still lost quickly, but by the third round she was able to get in a few good hits on Gar’s character and put up more of a fight.  It made him laugh in delight while simultaneously elbowing her arm to try and sabotage her, even though she wasn’t even holding the controller in her hands and it didn’t make a difference.

She didn’t even notice they’d passed the fifth round until they were on the tenth.  She chose not to say anything, because she was actually enjoying herself, and her competitive spirit had taken over. On the eleventh round she won, and the surge of victory that spread through her was enough to make all the cabinets in the kitchen slam open.

“Rematch!” Gar said immediately. “I’m proud that I didn’t have to let you win to make you feel better, but now I have to defend my honor!”

Raven beat him in the next match, and the next.  They were halfway through their fifteenth game, where Raven had trapped Gar’s character in a corner and was methodically beating all the health out of him, when Cyborg and Robin entered the room.

“I almost didn’t believe it when Starfire said he actually got you to play,” Cyborg crowed. “And she’s kicking your ass, BB!”

“Shut up, I beat her tons before.”

“Yeah, when I was still learning how to play,” Raven said, elbowing him sharply in the side, jostling his arm and making him howl about cheating.

“I play winner,” Robin called.

After she thoroughly trounced Robin and then, ultimately, was taken down with very little effort by Cyborg, Raven gave her controller up to Gar and collected her book.

“Hey, you don’t want to play anymore?” he asked.

“I’ve had enough,” Raven said. “But...it was fun.”

“I knew you’d enjoy it if you just tried it,” Gar insisted. “Are you sure you don’t want to keep playing?”

“I’m sure,” she said.

“Okay.  Well, thanks for playing with me, Rae.”

“You’re welcome.”

She leaned down and kissed him on the mouth quickly, to much hooting and catcalling from the others, and then made her way out of the common room.  She loved her friends, and she’d had fun with the game, but she was overdue for some quiet and solitude.

And anyway, she had a date with a really good book.


End file.
